Partnership
by Foxfire1
Summary: On the Outer Rim, Atton Rand encounters a familiar face.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: Everybody here belongs to George Lucas, Bioware, and/or Obsidian. For anybody who wants to know, this is threatening to turn into a series, so consider yourselves warned. :-)

**Partnership**

Atton took a gulp of ale and tried not to grimace. It wasn't much of a drink, but this wasn't much of a cantina. Just a prefab hut, on a world too remote to even merit a name, with half its floor piled with crates and the other half given over to a makeshift bar and a few battered tables. An acrid wind whined around the building and through the chinks in the wall, stirring the sand tracked in by the miners and strays who worked this rock.

He was determined not to become one of them. But supplies were low, and here on the very fringes of the Rim there was no one to steal from, no one to con, and no one who'd hire a weedy Sith-turned-scoundrel-turned-pilot. He couldn't go much further forward, and damned if he was going back.

He'd tried to stay, as she had asked. He'd tried to keep to known space and learn the ways of the Force - but every time he touched the Force, he felt her. Nothing but faint images and sparks of emotion over a bond stretched thin by distance, but enough to know that she needed him. Even if it was only to watch her back, even if she was trying to be pigheadedly noble and stubborn and - and damn near suicidal - she needed him.

So he'd taken off to find her, leaving Nar Shaddaa behind in a small freighter with a handful of different ID codes and an engine much more powerful than its size would indicate. He was running low on fuel and food by now, but he'd take his chances with whatever he could find at this remote outpost. Most of the cantina's regulars knew he was looking for a job, and they might yet turn something up.

He heard the scuff of boots on the gritty floor a moment before a shadow fell across his table. Indeterminate age, short-clipped dark hair, and eyes that gave away nothing - but the intruder kept his hands carefully in sight, and waited for Atton's acknowledgment before sitting down at the table. Scoundrel's instincts and Force talents both agreed that this one posed no immediate threat, and Atton nodded to him and pushed the pitcher of ale across the table.

"Bartender says you're looking for work?" The other man poured himself a mugful of ale, but looked at it dubiously. Atton couldn't blame him.

"Looking, yeah. What do you need done?"

"Pilot, right?" At Atton's nod, he went on. "I need transport. Anywhere along the rim that's not here."

"What the hell for?" That slipped out before he could stop it. Nobody wanted to_stay_ on the Rim.

He didn't miss a beat. "I'm an archaeologist."

"No, you're not." Not with that stance, not with the way his eyes kept flickering over the room. Too young to have fought in the Wars, but Atton would space his side deck if he weren't a soldier of some description. "But I can't say I care what your business is, as long as it doesn't involve me getting stabbed or shot or thrown in a force cage somewhere."

The other man shook his head. "Family business. My father lost something he needs out here, and I'm trying to find it for him. Look, just - just drop me off at the next port if you want; I'll still be better off than being stranded here."

"Good enough. What do you pay?"

"Aah..." For a moment, he looked much younger. "There's the problem. I got stuck here when my ship's drive burned out, and I used most of my credits trying to get it fixed. Didn't work."

"So you're broke."

"Poor as an Ithorian. But I can take it out in trade. I've got fuel, just nothing that'll burn it, and some gear I can give you. And I'm a good hand with blasters - I can watch your back until you get where you're going."

Atton looked him over carefully, and not with his eyes alone. He found the feel of secrets but no deceit, and a drive to prove himself - redeem himself - that was far too familiar. He didn't probe any deeper than he had to, but he already knew he couldn't leave his would-be passenger here to burn himself out trying to answer that need. "All right, you've got yourself a ride. Ready to lift when you are."

The younger man's face never changed, but his shoulders sagged just slightly in relief. "Can't be soon enough for me. Thanks for the trade." He stuck out a hand. "My name's Dustil."

"Atton Rand. Now, about those supplies..."


	2. Chapter Two

In the cramped cockpit of his freighter, Atton stretched, bumped his knuckles against the ceiling, and swore. _If anybody told me that I'd _miss_ the _Ebon Hawk... The _Hawk_ had been crowded with more than just bodies, full of old wounds, old guilt, and private agendas - never mind the single Jedi who'd burned in the Force with the brittle energy of a nova. But at least it had had people to watch his back - however reluctantly - and a cockpit he could stand up in.

The _Hawk_ had been a smuggler's ship. This one was a courier - small, fast, and with damn near every bit of comfort sacrificed for speed. Technically it carried four, but he'd found it a bit tight even for one. Add in a passenger and the small mountain of equipment he'd brought with him, and things got...confining.

Better than the alternative, though. Since leaving Nar Shaddaa, Atton had been alone with his thoughts just long enough to know that he didn't like it. His thoughts weren't something he'd wish on anybody.

He glanced over his shoulder to the main hold, such as it was. Standing in the middle of the narrow space, Dustil was scowling at a mound of equipment as though he could make it stow itself neatly by sheer force of will. He hadn't been running a con when he offered to trade Atton in gear for the price of passage; Atton had expected weapons and medpacks, but Dustil also had armor, a high-powered communications rig, and an assortment of equipment that he hadn't gotten a close look at yet. All of it spoke of someone who'd done careful planning for a dangerous journey. _Not_ someone running a simple errand for his father.

He checked the readouts for any hint of trouble, then picked his way out of the cockpit to where Dustil was trying to push three medpacks into a space that might have held two. "Need any help?"

"I need a spare hold, for starters. Don't suppose you've got one stashed away?"

"Sorry. This ship's built to move information, not cargo."

"I've noticed." Dustil gave the pile of equipment a jaundiced look. "Well. Maybe I can sell some of this the next time we touch down. If you sort out what you want in trade for passage, I'll see if I can get the rest in condition to sell."

Fair enough, especially if he was getting first choice. Except for the small carton that Dustil pulled protectively toward himself, filled with artifacts of clearly inhuman origin. Abstract figures, something that might have been a knife, an intricately carved (grown? molded?) box...all of them things that would fetch a high price on the Core Worlds. Atton let out a low whistle. "You were lugging those around that rock of a planet and nobody tried to rob you?"

"They tried." Dustil's grin had a feral edge. "Once or twice, anyway. Then word got around."

Some day, he was going to fly for someone who _wasn't_ determined to make themselves as big a target as possible... "So these are what you've been looking for?"

"Sort of...well, not really. I'm hoping I'll find something in these that'll tell me where to _start _looking." One hand moved over the haphazard collection in an unconscious gesture that raised Atton's hackles. Too absorbed. Too...Jedi-like. "But right now all I've got is hints. So I've been trying to find as many of these as I can."

Atton looked the objects over with a smuggler's eye. "No wonder you're broke."

"I didn't buy _all_ of them," he said defensively. "Some I dug up, some I, ah-"

"Stole?"

"Tried to steal. It turns out I'm a terrible thief."

Atton tried to clamp down on a smirk, and succeeded. Mostly. "What happened?"

"I was low on funds, I saw something I needed, and I tried to slice the owner's security console. There were, um, explosions."

"Loud?"

"Earsplitting. Which led to security guards and me running away, which led to my hyperdrive burning out, and you know the rest."

What he _knew_ was nothing more than an outline at best. That array of equipment had been put together by someone who wasn't expecting any support whatsoever; if Dustil was on business for his family, odds were his family didn't know anything about it. And the last thing Atton needed was a set of irate relatives to dodge. "Just tell me there's nobody coming after you."

He shook his head. "Shouldn't be. I think that last bunch was content with knowing I couldn't make it back."

He knew the kind. Territorial as kath hounds, and just as likely to drop your trail once they'd scared you off. There were worse sorts of trouble to run into out here - and he'd probably run into all of it before he was done. "Good enough. We've got a course laid in for the nearest inhabited world - which is damn near a garden spot compared to the last one - and you can sell off whatever you don't need there."

Dustil nodded abstractedly, attention focused on the pile of equipment he'd been sorting through. Atton knew the look of someone who wasn't sure _what_ he would or wouldn't need, and left him to it. It wouldn't be long until they made planetfall, and he needed to be at the controls. But he couldn't quite help the urge to glance over his shoulder, or the prickle between his shoulderblades when he thought about Dustil's collection of artifacts. He was glad to have someone at his back, but he was beginning to wonder just how safe he was.

* * *

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and to snackfiend101 and VanillaLatte for helping me polish this one. 


	3. Chapter Three

Compared to the last world, Tiraal IV was a model of cosmopolitan glamour, boasting a small cantina, a handful of traders, and something that was _almost_ a shipyard. It was the closest thing to civilization that Atton had seen since leaving Nar Shaddaa. And he couldn't wait to leave it behind him.

He paced around the edges of the cantina, holding a drink that he hadn't touched since buying it. It helped him blend in with the customers, but he didn't want anything dulling his senses. Something...wasn't right.

Hell if he knew what it was, though - true danger or imagination or just the Rim itself. He didn't like these empty spaces, broken only by the occasional hardscrabble outpost or spaceport; the silence made him jumpy.

It didn't seem to bother Dustil, who'd left shortly after landing to go comb through the portside traders. But the younger man was hunting for artifacts with a single-minded focus that felt very familiar to Atton, after all the time he'd spent helping to search out Jedi Masters all across known space. Whatever trail he was following, Atton didn't think Dustil would notice if a Dark Jedi in full regalia and lightsaber popped up in his face.

So while Dustil went off looking for...well, whatever he was looking for, Atton stayed in the relative comfort of the cantina. He'd spent some time carefully cardsharking his way through the locals with what he'd come to think of as Jedi Temple rules - look helpful and harmless, and they'll never even notice it when you stab them in the back - but mostly he just watched. And listened. And strained the other senses that he was only just beginning to understand, searching for that hint of _something wrong_. Whatever it was, it tugged at his attention, but he couldn't quite identify it. And he didn't think it was a good idea to try.

He started working his way toward the door when he saw Dustil come in, a narrow bundle tucked under one arm and his eyes narrowed in thought or determination. "We need to clear out of here," he said as soon as Atton was in earshot.

"What, did you shoot somebody?"

Dustil came perilously close to rolling his eyes. "No."

"Somebody shooting at you?"

"Not lately."

"Then what's the hurry?"

"Pirates."

"Frack."

"The traders tell me they've been based near here for a while," Dustil said as Atton fell into step beside him. "Seems they've never really been much trouble until lately, though - not as many targets now, so the ones they can find get hit harder."

"And we make one hell of a target." Flying an unfamiliar ship was trouble enough, with the pickings as slim as they were out here on the Rim. But if the pirates had a ground scout who'd noticed the arrival of someone with fresh goods to trade... "You done with your business here?"

Dustil snorted. "I am now."

Atton looked pointedly at the bundle the other man was carrying. "I thought the idea was to get rid of things."

"I did," he said, with an offhand shrug that didn't fool Atton at all. Too much of his attention was focused on the narrow bundle he carried. "Traded my old blade for this one, and cleared enough room in the hold that you can make it from the cockpit to the engines without tripping." He paused, obviously picturing the cramped interior of the freighter. "I think."

"I hope so. Because if I've got to outfly pirates, you're going to be rattling around in that hold like the brains in a Gamorrean's head."

"Try and keep it from coming to that. If I get shot down by pirates, my father's going to hunt down my ghost just so he can kill me again for being so stupid."

Atton blinked. "And you're trying to do him a favor?"

"Long story."

Liftoff was smooth enough - Dustil had a way of staring at port officers that made them forget little formalities like filing lift paths - but Atton couldn't quite relax, even when the horizon shrunk and curved behind him and he saw the first stars ahead. Whatever had been troubling him planetside, it was as bad or worse in space. Something waiting, stalking, like - like the old blind witch, but infinitely more patient...

Maybe his head would clear in hyperspace. Maybe when he could find another world, a clear patch of sky - find a moment to reach out and see if he was imagining things. They were almost to the edge of the system, and a few hours of quiet flight would be more than enough for what he needed to do.

"No signs of trouble," Dustil reported from behind him. "I think we're in the clear."

He had just enough time to wonder what "signs" Dustil could have seen from the hold, when the readouts in front of him lit up with proximity alerts. Three ships between him and open space, blocking off the relative safety of hyperspace.

"You _had_ to say that, didn't you?" he snapped, hands darting over the controls. The engines hummed behind him as he raised the power consumption as much as he dared. "Hang on. This ride's about to get a lot rougher."

* * *

Many thanks to all of you who reviewed! As for the short chapters, I really can't help it; neither one of the main characters _wants_ to show up for more than a couple of pages. Maybe it's one of those male fear-of-commitment things. :-) To anybody who's wondering about other KotOR characters, in my little world Atton never met Carth. (Just as well, considering Carth's stated opinion of the guys who went over to the Sith side of things.) And Mission's involved in the backstory of just _how_ Dustil wound up on the Rim, but I have no idea if that'll get covered or not. 


	4. Chapter 4

Atton scowled at the console without really seeing it, his world narrowed down to hands and mind and the three ships in front of him. He had speed and not much else on his side; they had numbers and firepower. Crack piloting skills or not, he knew who he was betting on in this little encounter.

"This ship got any teeth to it?"

"Forward guns. No turrets."

"Good enough."

He hunched aside to let Dustil squeeze into the copilot's seat, but paid no attention to the other man after that. If Dustil could squeeze off a lucky shot or two, good for him, but Atton was thinking of nothing but the obstacles between him and open space. Even if he didn't expect to make it.

He tried. He rolled, spun and dodged, pushing the little ship until the engines keened in protest. He streaked under the belly of the largest pirate ship, grinning ferally when the scattered shots from his pursuer hit the enemy ship instead. But one of the escorts dove on him when he came out from that dubious shelter, with a flurry of lasers that burst against the forward shields. Atton blinked the afterimages away, scrambling to rebalance the shields. Dustil glanced at the boards, took in the situation without a word of question, and launched a barrage of indiscriminate fire, trying to hold the pirates back until their shields could regenerate.

They almost pulled it off. But the pirates were better armed and armored, and after one strike that resulted in a fountain of sparks across the cockpit and an ominous drop in the engines' howl, Atton braced himself for…he didn't know what. Boarders if he was lucky, another shot to crack the hull if he wasn't…_One last failure, damn it all._

But there was only the jolt of a tractor beam and the low groan of metal as the pirates wrenched his ship into their course. No demand for surrender, no focusing of intent from the other ships that might have warned him of a killing shot. "I don't like this," he muttered, more to himself than his passenger. That didn't stop Dustil from giving him a withering look.

"No, I _really _don't like this. I've run with pirates, and this isn't how they act."

"Hm. What should they be doing?"

"Boarding if they want our cargo, blowing us to shards if they just want salvage. Not - not just towing us along."

"And this is supposed to be worse than being blown up?"

"It's different. It's - wrong." _Bad feeling about this. Bad, bad feeling about this._

"So do we talk, or fight?"

"Let me think." Or appear to be thinking, while he stretched his senses out and found…nothing. Emptiness so complete that he almost believed he'd gone Force-blind, except for Dustil's focused presence beside him. _Droids _had more presence in the Force than whoever - whatever - was piloting those ships. The hair rose on his arms. "We're fighting. Got any surprises stashed back in the hold?"

Dustil shrugged. "Grenades. And a few mines, for whatever good they may do."

"Hand 'em over."

He rifled through the satchel that Dustil brought from the hold, leaving most of the heavy explosives for the other man. Frag grenades didn't do much more than make your target angry, but concussion and gas left them dazed and disoriented. Especially when they didn't see you coming, especially when you caught them before they could draw on the Force. Gas in the face, then a vibroblade from behind-

He banished the image with a flurry of cards before his mind's eye._ No time for that. Never time for that._

No time for anything, as the ship clanked and scraped its way to an inept docking with a cobbled-together station. Atton braced himself for boarders, but Dustil frowned at the airlock and shook his head. "No good waiting. We might have a chance if we charge whatever's out there."

"Do I _look _like the kind of person who charges things?"

"You'd rather look all singed and crispy when you let them pick the battlefield?"

Atton conceded the point with a wordless shrug. "Fine. You go first."

Dustil took him at his word. Atton swore.

There were far fewer pirates than there should have been - a handful of expressionless men and women, still leaving their ships when Dustil dove out of the main hatch. And that was the only thing that saved the two of them. Atton was distracted at first by the scattering of details that didn't add up - too cold, too dry, too quiet, despite the flurry of blaster fire coming at them. He hit them with a gas grenade and knew it had taken effect, felt the dull throb in the Force of bodies in distress, but saw no reaction. Even the best-trained soldiers and Jedi reacted to a gas grenade with revulsion or startlement.

_Stop staring and start shooting, or you won't live long enough to wonder about it._

He ducked away from their return fire and scrambled to the relative safety of the boarding ramp, where Dustil was firing two-handed and steadily from behind the cover it provided. "Keep 'em busy," Atton growled, and wove through the landing struts until he came to the other side of the ship. The ship's nose protected him somewhat - more importantly, it kept him hidden. And he could hit damn hard when the enemy didn't see him coming.

He watched for an opening, sighted carefully, and fired, trading speed for effectiveness. As long as they were distracted by Dustil's full-out attack, and as long as the two of them could hold out-

The thought made him stop and concentrate for a moment, reaching for that still place that was becoming easier to find. Calla had been able to wrap the Force around herself and disappear from sight; Atton couldn't do that, but he didn't need to. Just - a twist, a warp in the light, so that all the pirates' shots would go a little wild. Just a little bit of an edge…

The shots slowed - on both sides, as Dustil hesitated for a moment._ Dammit, this is not the time to get distracted! _Because if they weren't concentrating on Dustil, they might notice him sniping from the side, and he had no illusions about being able to stop a blaster bolt.

But the gunfire from the other side of the ship picked back up, and Atton eased into a simple rhythm with no room or need for thought. Target, sight, shoot. Almost like meditation, a focus so complete that he barely twitched when a shot came too close, a clarity of vision that he sought only as long as it was turned outward…

They fell. Under his precision and Dustil's barrage, the pirates' offense slowed and shattered. But the air was thick with the scorched smell of blaster fire by the time the last pirates dropped - crumpling like droids with the power cut, not like sentients fighting for their lives. _Not right. Nowhere near right._

Dustil emerged from behind the ramp, scanning the room warily with blasters at the ready before nodding to Atton. "Looks clear. In, or out?"

"In. We've got the drop on them now, and I don't want to get jumped again." And something was wrong here, wrong enough that he wanted to root it out and kill it if he could. _Thinking like a damn Jedi. And people wonder why they were so easy to kill_.

He switched on his stealth generator. "Let me go first. I don't know what we're likely to run into."

Nothing, as it turned out. Or close to it; one pirate, expressionless as all the rest, manning a cobbled-together communications station, and another two in the dormitories. None of them saw Atton coming, or reacted fast enough once they did. No one at all in maintenance, despite the dangerously low life support readouts; heat and oxygen circulation were both at their lowest possible output, but Atton couldn't tell if it was the result of damage or a deliberate setting. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to check; if he _had _to feel this place out, best to get it over with and get out. Slice the computers, check the communications logs, and hope that was all he had to do.

"Been there, been there too, cleaned that out…" Dustil flipped from one security camera to the next. "Hm."

"What?"

"Prisoners." His face went grim as he studied the image more closely. "Well. One prisoner."

"Here? Poor bastard's going to freeze to death."

"I don't think he'll last that long, unless we can get to him." Dustil shut the console down as he spoke, rummaging for a medpac on his way out the door. Atton followed, not without an inner curse at impulsive idiots who didn't at least look first when they were in hostile territory.

The prison - a clumsily converted cargo hold - was several meters down the corridor. Atton got through the lock easily enough, but he knew there was nothing he could do for the one living man among the bodies scattered on the floor. Tortured and…drained somehow; he could feel a flicker of life left, but it was faint.

"Let me handle this." Dustil pushed past him. "I've - had a little practice with things like this."

_I've had more than you could dream of. _But he stepped back and let the younger man do what he could - more than Atton could have. No one had ever made him clean up his toys after he broke them.

It didn't take long for Dustil to go through several medpacs, stripping them of kolto and stims and leaving the rest on the floor. "Help me get him sitting up," he ordered, as the man took a ragged breath. "It'll help him breathe better."

Atton nodded, and lifted the man - pirate? prisoner? - as gently as he could to rest against the wall, trying not to think about the broken bones shifting under his fingers. Another deep, raspy breath and his eyes opened, widening with something that wasn't quite recognition. "Help me-" He shut his eyes against the pain from broken ribs; when he opened them again, Atton couldn't tell which of them he was looking at. "-need your help. Jedi."


	5. Chapter Five

"Delusional," Atton said carefully. "Has to be."

Dustil nodded, face as deliberately blank as Atton's own. "Push a man too far, he'll believe just about anything. I'll…see if we've got anything to help him out."

He backed hastily out of the makeshift prison, leaving Atton along with bodies, one half-conscious old man, and a cold knot of fear in his belly. If Dustil believed what he'd heard - if the pirate kept talking-

He wanted to think it was old reflexes. But fear-driven anger made his fists clench as he leaned in, looming over the prisoner and briefly wishing for something more intimidating than a blaster. Something that would _hurt_. "Listen, old man, whatever you think you know, keep quiet about it. Or I'll-"

He was cut off by a wheeze that might have been laughter or pain. "You'll what, boy? Kill me? It's too late for that."

He _could_. Still wanted to, rather than risk his secret, and the knowledge left him sick and shaky. "I didn't come here to hurt anybody. But you don't know what you're saying."

"I'm dying, boy. I see things I couldn't see before. Your friend-"

"Medpacks," Dustil announced, clattering back into the room. "I don't-" He cut himself off before going any further, but Atton could read the rest of the thought in the taut lines of his face. _I don't think they'll do him any good. _

"Do what you can," Atton said, moving back to give Dustil room to work. "I'll - hell, I don't know what I can do to help-" _…half-cocked, half-trained, can't heal worth a damn…_

"You want to help?" the pirate asked. "I've got mines. And the power conduits here are half-corroded. Blow this place to shrapnel."

"What?"

"Take what you want. What you can carry. But destroy this place before you go."

Dustil's mouth quirked in bleak amusement. "Hell of a funeral pyre."

"It's not that," Atton said thoughtfully. "It's-" Fear? The pirate was beyond any concern for himself, but an odd, formless dread still coiled through Atton's Force-sense of the man. "What happened here?"

"Mutiny. I thought." Atton reached out for the dying man, seeing and feeling the things he didn't say. "Sent some folk out scouting. Not many came back." _-came back wrong, shadowed and predatory, eyeing crewmates with a hunger that was not physical._ "Those that did jumped us-"_ savagery that didn't feel pain, a hovering, unseen something that clung and drained- _"Killed pretty much everybody, stuffed the rest in here." _-thin, cold air that sapped the will, swarming presences that battered at his mind-_ "Don't know what they wanted, but they weren't…_them _any more."

He was holding something back. It was experience and not the Force that told Atton that, and he blocked away the memory of how he'd _gotten _that experience, shielding against it as he would have done against another Jedi. "You know more than I do, old man. And if I'm supposed to blow the station I'm standing on, I damn well want to know why."

The pirate took a rasping breath that would have turned into a cough if he'd had the strength. "Stage - staging area. Beachhead."

"For what?" Dustil asked. "We're the only people alive on this hunk of metal."

"Not people. Not…I don't know. But I saw - they took us away, one at a time. Heard the screams. Mostly they stopped and I heard the airlock cycle. Once or twice, saw them walking around instead." Atton didn't quite flinch from the man's memory, of former crewmates now walking with the invaders' empty faces. Of his own pain, and a blurry awareness of something that probed at his mind and demanded surrender. "They left me alone when you two started shooting. They want - some kind of prisoners. Warm bodies, anyway." The memory flickered again, of familiar crewmates with vacant, hostile eyes, and Atton's skin prickled. He didn't understand what had happened here, but what he'd seen made him want to bolt for the safety of the Core.

"I don't get it," Dustil murmured, staring intently at the man. "But he's not lying." He caught himself. "I don't think he's lying. We should go along with him."

Easy enough to rig a timed explosion that would give them space to get clear. Fire to cleanse this place of the taint he could sense but not understand… "You're right. I'll see what I can do with the power systems, if you can get him shipboard-"

"Don't bother. Told you I was dying." The pirate gave them both a fierce stare. "Just get the job done."

Dustil hesitated. Atton didn't. It wasn't likely they'd be able to get the old man to medical help before he died. And if he felt a sneaking relief at being rid of someone who saw far too much - well, it wasn't worthy of a Jedi, but he wasn't much of a Jedi. "Your call. Let's go."

"I don't like it."

"I don't like anything out here. Doesn't change things."

Dustil scowled, but followed reluctantly when Atton got to his feet - not without giving the dying pirate the painkillers they hadn't dared use earlier. It didn't take long to make it to the station controls outside the landing bay, and by unspoken consent, they worked silently at first, slicing the consoles that controlled the station's power consumption. But a few minutes of watching Dustil's set, uneasy expression drove Atton to ask, "So do you believe that story?"

"I believe _he _believed it. And I believe something's seriously out of line here."

"So what are we doing sticking around?"

"Got to. I can't go back yet." Dustil frowned. "You…don't have to, though. Looks like those pirate ships still fly. You could take one of them and head back planetside - hell, might even turn a profit."

It was tempting, even for the person he wanted to be. New world, new name, the safety of obscurity and a dozen worlds to disappear into. He wouldn't even have to give up searching for Calla; surely there was someone on the Rim who could tell him where to look next…

_But she's out there. In the dark. _It wasn't logical, and it wasn't - quite - the Force. That didn't mean he could ignore it.

"…naah. Nothing worth going back for."

But the space between the stars had never looked quite so dark.


End file.
